Thursday, August 28, 2014

The fascist degeneration of the Dominican Republic continues. After all kind of absurdly racist maneuvers like the removal of citizenship to all people with origins in nearby Haiti since a century ago or the pathetic fiasco of forcing women to straighten their hair in order to get the ID card photo taken, today the fascist involution of the Dominican state has taken a further step.

A Green March in defense of the declaration of Loma Miranda as National Park was held these days (picture), with a camp being set in the would-be park. The Dominican Army has surrounded the camp, what triggered the mass support of the local inhabitants of El Algarrobo for the protesters.

The Army has reacted by firing gun-machines. It is unclear at this time if anyone has been injured or killed.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

The French government crisis has been "solved" with an even greater turn to the Right, removing the three critical ministers and replacing them with loyal minions of the Capitalist International, notably former Adjunct Secretary to the Presidency, Emmanuel Macron, who used to be a high executive (2008-12) of Rothschild & Cie Banque, the investment branch of Paris Orléans SCA, which is the flagship of the Rothschild Banking Group.

The other new ministers are Najad Vallaud-Belkacem (Education) and Fleur Pellerin (Culture).

The only critical minister keeping her position is Christine Taubira (Justice), who is best known for having promoted the homosexual marriage law.

The majority of the Valls government in the National Assembly is thin, with the PS holding a mere plurality of the seats (48.5%), some of which are openly hostile to this reactionary cabinet, and needing hence the support of the so-called Party of the Radical Left (meaning the left-leaning faction of the liberal "radicals", almost identical to the PS in their liberalism), who hold 2% of the parliamentary weight but three of the portfolios.

Negotiations to gather the support of Europe Ecology - The Greens have failed. No other party supports the cabinet, although there are some independents (collectively known as miscellaneous left) who may do.

Aggressive discourses against Germany-led "austerity" (recession) policies in the Eurozone were issued by several prominent ministers in this dramatic government crisis. The collapse of the popularity of the very reactionary "socialist" Prime Minister Manuel Valls (who is still in charge but for how long?) and the rise of these "rebel" ministers who openly criticize the Eurozone policies and the destructive leadership of Germany in all this social and economical catastrophe, underline that it is a most serious conflict on the socio-economic model in the French Republic and in the whole European Union.

One of those rising PS stars is Arnaud Monteburg, former Minister of Economy, who has been very fierce in his criticism of Merkel and generally German euro-destructive policies. Excerpts of his commentaries:

You have to raise your voice. Germany is trapped in an
austerity policy that it imposed across Europe (...) France is the eurozone's second-biggest economy, the world's
fifth-greatest power, and it does not intend to align itself,
ladies and gentlemen, with the excessive obsessions of Germany's
conservatives (...) The priority must be exiting crisis and the dogmatic
reduction of deficits should come second.

Montebourg is a heavyweight in the Socialist Party, getting 17% of the votes in the 2012 presidential primaries. He has been minister since Hollande became president but not anymore because he is now openly confronting the corporate subservient policies of his bosses.

The Minister of Education, Benoît Hamon, agreed wholeheartedly:

Merkel cannot be anymore the one leading Europe's course. (...) You cannot sell anything to the French unless they have money in their pockets.

Former Housing Minister, Cécile Duflot (Greens) has also attacked very verbosely both Holland and Valls for their disaster policies.

No matter what, the new Valls cabinet plans to apply the EU-demanded €50 billion budget reduction in three years. And will do it by loading the cost on the popular classes: pension and public salary cuts and destruction of public services.

It seems however that Valls has not at all granted the support of Parliament for this endeavor, as more and more critical voices arise from inside his own party. Naturally they will get no support from the Right, which hopes for snap elections.

The Fascist troops that occupied the harbor town of Mariupol, south of Donetsk, have evacuated the city as the Militias march decidely against them, fleeing towards the west (Zaporozhie and Mangushev).

Monday, August 25, 2014

Until now all hydrolysis catalysts were made out of precious metals, making relatively impractical to produce hydrogen (a top quality fuel that emits only water vapor as residue) in large quantities out of water, what implied the use of polluting methane instead, a bad "solution".

However US researchers have now developed a nickel-based catalyst that performs even better than the old expensive ones, shows promise of durability and even reduces the electric tension needed so much that even a common 1.5 V battery can do the job.

Scaled up industrial designs are under research but seem perfectly feasible, judging on the excellent results of these nickel catalysts.

Effective transformation of electric energy into hydrogen and a modicum of political will are all that are needed to make the jump from a petroleum-based energy system to one based on renewables with minimal, if any, pollution impact.

The main problem of renewable sources of energy is that their supply is somewhat unstable and their relative low portability. However being able to store all that energy in hydrogen form, split out of water, should solve these inconveniences and, politics allowing, even fully replace our current, polluting and growingly expensive, reliance on fossil fuels.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

The most striking recent development in Ukraine's war against Fascism is the raising of an Anarchist guerrilla, named Makhno Battalion, which is operating behind the lines not just in Zaporozhia but also in Dniepropetrovsk.

Their ideology is rather different from the more generically nationalist slogans that often dominate the discourse in the rebel Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, figuring among them the goal of liberating all Ukraine from Fascism and not just certain regions. They are also different from the fake "anarchists" financed by Western oligarchs like George Soros to create confusion, which have been spreading disinformation about what is actually happening in Ukraine.

The Makhno Battalion first attacked a column of the Fascist National Guard, accompanied by US military advisors, on August 7th, destroying several tanks.

On August 21st they attacked again the National Guard in the region of Dniepropetrovsk. The Fascist unit was retreating from Ilovaysk, where they had been previously crushed by the Donbass Militia. The bounty was Zionist-made body armors and machine guns Fort-221.

With date of August 21st, Euskal Herria - Donbass Solidarity Committee, mirrors another military report in English (originally from Novorossiya News Agency) which briefly mentions a number of battles, particularly around Lutgino, where the Junta's forces have managed to make a limited but potentially dangerous breakthrough, which is being countered by Militia's counter-attacks and some successful defense actions.

They also mention Militia's progress around Slavyanoserbsk and a clear advance to the North of Lugansk, still in development at the time of this report. Most enemy forces are described as "Nazis", what suggests that they are either part of the National Guard or the armored battalions organized by the oligarchs, all them full of Banderista fanatics. Regular troops are only mentioned in relation with the pocket of Zhdanovka, where they have been systematically besieged and punished by the Militia since weeks ago.

In general terms there would seem that there is not any more a regular Ukrainian Army worth that name, just Fascist units in rather difficult situation.

The Basque Solidarity Committee also mentions[es] that the the Russian humanitarian aid trucks have successfully arrived to Lugansk in spite of the Junta's bombings, sanctioned by NATO, which claims that sending humanitarian aid is a "violation of sovereignty". No mention to the many crimes against humankind committed by the Junta, of course, let alone their absolute lack of legitimacy.

Overall, it is becoming increasingly clear that the widely publicized
offensive on Donetsk has, as expected, amounted to zilch. The Ukrainian
Armed Forces does not have any more strength. It simply does not. And
that is all. Moreover, the Junta forces are facing several simultaneous
catastrophes on the local scale, which can become operational-tactical
in nature and then strategic.

In Donetsk Republic, they report of successful encircling operations in the last week, retaking most of the border with Russia and capturing many armored vehicles. Similar results were achieved in the Northern front. Also fierce fighting around the strategic area of Ilovaisk with clear victories for the Militia, while the Western sector remained idle except for the incident of a bunch of Nazis in a bus who suicidally attacked a militia control point and were massacred.

Latest military map (click to enlarge)

In Lugansk Republic the hostilities were essentially related to the Russian humanitarian convoy, which triggered the Junta's desire to cut the road supplying Lugansk at Novosvetlovka-Khryashchevatoye. After an initial apparent success caused by surprise, the attack was fully defeated, crushing one of the Fascist units financed by the Ukrainian oligarchs: Battalion Aidar, as well as a tank company and a motorized infantry company of the regular Army. Further popular victories, with still ongoing artillery fire, were reported in Novosvetlovka.

They also mention the adjustments (resignations-cum-new-nominations) in the command of both militias, which are now gathered as a unified Army with pan-Ukrainian aspirations.

However I can't but raise my eyebrows to this comment:

The centralization of the military command will also oust the remnants of Makhnovism, which have been discrediting the movement.

How could Makhnovism (Anarchism, Libertarian Communism) discredit the movement and which are the goals of the Novorossiya Federation if Makhnovism is so problematic for them?

In any case, they emphasize that, after the many crushing victories of the Militias in the last weeks, the limelight has been transferred from the regular Army, extremely damaged, to what they call "militarized battalions", i.e. Fascist units financed by the oligarchs, units that, in spite of their fanaticism, are not at all comparable with the, properly trained and equipped, regular troops.

They conclude with an evaluation of military capacity, which has been technically equalized but is clearly better in the fields of moral and operational quality for the Militia. They suggest that a critical change is about to happen.

Bombing of chemical plant

The Spanish volunteers Rafa and Ángel (pictured) report at Webguerrillero[es] that the Junta has bombed the chemical residues' processing plant of Gorlovka in yet another war crime, that risks the health and lives of the peoples of the wider region, not just the rebel republics.

Basque Country - Donbass Solidarity Committee just published another military report, which partly overlaps with the one mentioned above.

They discuss the murky issue of the black market of weapons, which affects both sides and the Russian mafias, and some ongoing battles in Donetsk People's Republic such as stopping the enemy at Yasinovataya, inflicting them severe losses at Nizhnyaya Krynka, repeat that the attempts to capture Ilovaisk have been all repealed and list some of the losses inflicted to the Junta's troops (known as "Ukies") in the besieged enclave of Saur-Mogila tumulus (called "mountain" in the report but actually an artificial hill from Prehistory).

The most mentioned town is Gorlovka (Horlivka in Ukranian), where the Militia claims to be encircling the "Ukies" after repealing the last attacks by the Junta's forces.

Contrary to the other report, this one has a more cautious forecast and advises that before the junta’s offensive in the area to the south of Debaltsevo is
rebuffed and Novosvetlovka recaptured, all talk about the crisis being
overcome is premature.

Even more interesting, I believe, is that, largely because of the lack of operative capabilities of the Ukrainian forces, the rear-guard is pretty much without watch and a still incipient guerrilla has began attacking the Fascist positions here and there. Considering that the actual civic support for the Junta is very weak in most of Ukraine and that the Nazi death squads have been largely sent to the front to replace the vanishing regular troops, I would say that it is very likely that guerrilla will become widespread throughout the country very soon, possibly triggering the collapse of the Junta altogether, particularly if the Novorossiya resistance becomes offensive and marches over Kharkov and other largely Russian-speaking cities, maybe even to Kiev itself.

Living under occupation in Ferguson

Nicole Colson reports
on the uprising against police murder in a Missouri city–and the
response of political and law enforcement authorities to double down on
violence.

Police train machine guns on a crowd of protesters in Ferguson, Mo.SINCE 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by an
unidentified police officer in Ferguson, Mo., on August 9, the majority
Black city just outside of St. Louis has been rocked by protests against
the racism of a system that sees the lives of young Black men as
disposable.The response of authorities has been to flood the town with hundreds of police from dozens of neighboring cities and towns, decked out in riot gear, and armed with assault weapons, attack dogs and militarized vehicles for “crowd control.”Protesters
say “keeping the peace” is the last thing on these cops’ minds–the
invaders are acting in a deliberately provocative and aggressive manner,
leading to an escalation of violence over several more nights of
protest.In the early morning hours of Wednesday, police shot and critically
wounded another young man in Ferguson, not long after that night’s
protests dispersed. Police say they were called to the area by reports
of men wearing ski masks and wielding shotguns, but when they arrived at
the scene, the unnamed victim flashed a handgun–”forcing” them to
shoot.

But most people in Ferguson–and millions more like them around the
country–can’t help but be skeptical about any police claims at this
point.- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -LOOKING MORE like an occupying army than anything else, the massive
police presence in Ferguson is responsible for the tensions and violence
in Ferguson, having inflicted violent repression on protesters for four
days and nights, including tear gas and rubber and wooden bullets.Steve Walsh was an innocent bystander. On Tuesday, He was walking to
the home of his two-month-old son and the child’s mother when he got
caught up in a police attack on protesters. Walsh told the Guardian that
he was struck in the neck by a “wooden pellet” which left “a bloody,
coin-sized wound behind his left ear,” the article stated. Walsh told
the reporter “I almost fainted. Blood just started coming out.”According to the Washington Post,
the clashes come “like clockwork–when the sun goes down each night,
those remaining on Ferguson’s dark streets are met by heavily armored
police, prompting confrontations and injuries.”Pictures of Ferguson on Wednesday night showed a huge cloud of smoke or gas over part of the city. Another showed what was reportedly some kind of an incendiary device used by police as it exploded in the street, throwing off a massive shower of sparks.One writer at Jezebel described the I Am Mike Brown livestream playing on the KARG Argus Radio website:

Viewers watched as police fired rubber bullets into
crowds of unarmed citizens. We watched as police advanced on a group of
peaceful demonstrators. I Am Mike Brown livestream reported police were
demanding that they turn off their cameras. “Because they don’t want
witnesses,” the reporter said.

Amid the violence of police, many protesters respond with a symbolic
action that is a poignant echo of how Michael Brown died: with hands
raised in the air, telling police, “Hands up. Don’t shoot.” Other
protesters march with signs that draw a parallel to the assertion of
basic humanity during the civil rights struggle only a few hours south
of Ferguson in Memphis, Tenn.: “I am a man,” “I am a woman.”

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

IN A statement, Ferguson police “requested” that those wishing to
hold vigils or protests “do so only during daylight hours in an
organized and respectful manner. We further ask all those wishing to
demonstrate or assemble to disperse well before the evening hours to
ensure the safety of the participants and the safety of our community.”

But for police to lecture the residents of Ferguson–or anyone
else–about “safety” after they gunned down an unarmed teenager and
treated protesters like animals is the height of hypocrisy. The cops in
Ferguson and the governmental authorities who issue their orders don’t
deserve anyone’s “respect,” as their actions this past week have shown
again and again.

It’s an illustration of the racism that lies at the heart of the
eruption of anger in Ferguson: A young unarmed Black man has his life
stolen by a white police officer whose identity is protected–while
Blacks alleged to have committed nonviolent crimes like burglary have
their names dragged through the mud on the evening news.

Despite the violence of police, protesters have called out this
double standard, night after night. Like Jammell Spann, a young
demonstrator who yelled out at police clearing a protest, “All of my friends have been killed. I’m sick of it!”

On Thursday morning, it was reported that St. Louis Alderman Antonio
French–who has been critical of Ferguson police and a presence at the
protests, where he has been videotaping the police for the past several
days–had been arrested. There was no word on the circumstances of that
arrest as this article was being written, but it was no doubt
retaliation for his criticism of the police.

Adding to the clampdown on reporting is the fact that the Federal
Aviation Administration declared a “no-fly” zone for low-flying aircraft
over the area on August 12, after a police helicopter was reportedly
shot at–meaning that news helicopters are unable to gather aerial
footage of confrontations between police and protesters.

The two were working from inside a local McDonald’s that reporters
have been using as a hub. Police, some in riot gear, came in and
demanded to see ID. According to Lowery:

Moments later, the police reemerged, telling us that we had to leave. I pulled my phone out and began recording video.

An officer with a large weapon came up to me and said, “Stop recording.”

I said, “Officer, do I not have the right to record you?”

He backed off but told me to hurry up. So I gathered my notebook and pens with one hand while recording him with the other hand.

As I exited, I saw Ryan to my left, having a similar argument with
two officers. I recorded him, too, and that angered the officer.

Apparently not exiting the restaurant fast enough for the cops, a confused Lowery was arrested–and so was Reilly:

Multiple officers grabbed me. I tried to turn my back to
them to assist them in arresting me. I dropped the things from my hands.

“My hands are behind my back,” I said. “I’m not resisting. I’m not
resisting.” At which point one officer said: “You’re resisting. Stop
resisting.”

That was when I was most afraid–more afraid than of the tear gas and rubber bullets.

“They essentially acted as a military force,” Reilly later told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “It
was incredible. The worst part was he slammed my head against the glass
purposefully on the way out of McDonald’s, and then sarcastically
apologized for it.”

The reporters were told they were under arrest for trespassing in a
McDonald’s–but the officers refused to give them their names or badge
numbers. Once word got around to police officials that two reporters had
been arrested, they were quickly released.Residents of Ferguson, however, don’t know when they’ll be released from the police occupation they now live under.

She added: “They say it’s the death of three men that started a chain
reaction of death and destruction in Gaza. Will we as a people rise up
like the people of Gaza? Will our community be bombed like last night
with tear gas? That was a terrorist attack.”

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

BUT TO hear St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar tell it, the police have acted as a model of restraint.

The police say they won’t release the name of the officer who shot
Michael Brown out of “fears for his safety.” They’ve had no comment
about Dorian Johnson’s claim that officers refused to take his
statement. According to Freeman Bosley, Johnson’s lawyer and the former
mayor of St. Louis, Bosley contacted the police to offer an interview
with his client–the person standing closest to Michael Brown when he was
shot.

“They didn’t even want to talk to him,” Bosley told MSNBC.
“[The police] don’t want the facts. What they want is to justify what
happened…What they are trying to do now is justify what happened instead
of trying to point out the wrong. Something is wrong here, and that’s
what it is.”Dorian Johnson told MSNBC that he understands the outrage that protesters in Ferguson feel toward police:

There are two crowds. An older crowd that wants justice,
but there’s anger. Then it’s the younger crowd that wants revenge, but
there’s anger there, too. What do you expect when something is steadily
occurring and it’s hurting the community and nobody is speaking out or
doing anything about it. I feel their anger, I feel their disgust.

It’s a lot of outside agitators that are causing the
violence. We’ve had several very peaceful protests–they’re angry, they
have questions they want answers to. I understand that. I get that. But
the community has now stepped up once this violence happened. Our
community leaders, the clergy, some of the activists, have stepped
forward and said, “Enough is enough.”

[T]he rebellions are seen as the dysfunctional cousin to
the peaceful and nonviolent Southern civil rights movement. Thus, while
the civil rights movement is universally lauded as successful because of
its strategic emphasis on nonviolence, the riots are universally
condemned because of the violence inherent in them. Moreover, they are
also blamed for alienating white allies and supporters, and are widely
viewed as the origins of white “backlash politics.”

A New York Times editorial, written only a few weeks after the
riots in Detroit in 1967, captured this argument: “The riots, rather
than developing a clamor for great social progress to wipe out poverty,
to a large extent have had the reverse effect and have increased the
crises for use of police force and criminal law.”Yet that perspective didn’t appear to correspond with a number of
polls taken 10 days later that showed massive support for the expansion
of social programs aimed at mitigating the material deprivation that
many connected with the spreading violence.In a poll of both African Americans and whites, strong majorities supported anti-poverty programs. As a Washington Post headline
summarized, “Races agree on ghetto abolition and the need for a WPA
[the federal Works Projects Administration]-style program.” Some 69
percent of Americans supported federal efforts to create a jobs program,
and 65 percent believed in tearing down ghettos. Another 60 percent
supported a federal program to eliminate rats, and 57 percent supported
summer camp programs for Black youth.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

THAT FERGUSON was a powder keg of anger waiting to explode isn’t the
fault of “outside agitators,” nor of its majority African American
population. It is the fault of the racist system–and, in particular, the
sentries of that system, the police–responsible for the killing of
Michael Brown.

Ferguson is a community where the stamp of racism and inequality is
imprinted on every aspect of life–from jobs to housing to racial
profiling. It was once known in the area as a haven for Blacks who
sought to escape poverty and violence in St. Louis, and who were
prevented from living in more affluent neighborhoods as a result of
redlining and other discriminatory housing practices. But as Blacks
moved into Ferguson, whites fled, a New York Times editorial reports:

In 1980, the town was 85 percent white and 14 percent
black; by 2010, it was 29 percent white and 69 percent Black. But Blacks
did not gain political power as their numbers grew. The mayor and the
police chief are white, as are five of the six City Council members. The
school board consists of six white members and one Hispanic. As
[University of Iowa professor Colin] Gordon explains, many Black
residents, lacking the wealth to buy property, move from apartment to
apartment…

The disparity is most evident in the Ferguson Police Department, of
which only three of 53 officers are Black. The largely white force stops
Black residents far out of proportion to their population, according to
statistics kept by the state attorney general. Blacks account for 86
percent of the traffic stops in the city, and 93 percent of the arrests
after those stops.

Ferguson residents have spoken powerfully in ways that put a human face on these statistics. As Michael Brown’s mother Leslie McSpadden told CNN’s Don Lemon in
between sobs, “Just because my son is a 6’4″ male Black walking down
the city street does not meet he meets the profile for anything other
than just walking down the street.”

Michael Brown Sr. said in the same interview, “My son don’t have
justice, and we don’t have no peace. If he has no justice, we won’t get
no peace.”

That’s why the smear that the people of Ferguson have engaged in
unrestrained “looting” and “rioting” since the death of Michael Brown is
so despicable.

The biggest property damage was done to a QuikTrip convenience store
that was set on fire and then tagged with anti-police graffiti. As it
turned out, the crowd likely turned its anger on the store when word
spread that someone at the store made the call to police reporting an
alleged case of shoplifting, which was reportedly the pretext for the
officer to stop Michael Brown in the first place. Other targets of
protesters include a Walmart and check-cashing store–that is, symbols of
poverty and exploitation in an impoverished neighborhood.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

PERHAPS REALIZING that the heavy-handed response from cops has only
inflamed the situation, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced on Thursday
that he was going to pull St. Louis County police out of
Ferguson–reportedly assuring clergy and community members that there
will be “operational shifts” and “you all will see a different tone.”

These are just some of the most recent examples of Black lives stolen
by police murder. And beyond the killings, untold numbers of people–men
and women–have their lives upended by an injustice system that is
racist to its core.

And what has been the response of America’s first Black president to this epidemic of Black lives stolen? Almost total silence.

The president expressed his condolences over the killing of Michael
Brown, calling it “heartbreaking.” But as tear gas and rubber bullets
were being fired at protesters and riot police roamed the streets of
Ferguson on Wednesday night, White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric
Schultz tweeted from Martha’s Vineyard, where the president is currently
vacationing: “Readout of tonight’s social gathering coming
shortly–spoiler alert: a good time was had by all.”

Obama’s failure to offer any substantial political initiative on the
urgent question of fighting racism is because he is dedicated to
maintaining the system that produces it.

Instead, we should be looking to the example of those fighting racism
and fighting to win justice for Michael Brown–and all the other
“Michael Browns” across this country whose names we don’t yet know.Like those at the historically Black Howard University where, on
Wednesday night, during a meeting about freshman move-in, students felt
compelled to respond to Michael Brown’s death and the protests in
Ferguson. In solidarity, hundreds gathered for a powerful picture–hands raised, faces defiant.

Honestly, I'm beginning to worry quite a bit as the epidemic spreads from Far West Africa to Nigeria and now also to the Persian Gulf (a woman in Dubai on her way to India, reported today by RIA) and very possibly Albania (where the victims arrived from Eritrea via Greece and surely other countries). Whatever the possible experimental treatments, the infection is pretty much deadly and physicians and other healthcare workers are getting infected even with all precautions, suggesting that transmission of this clade of ebola is much more likely than what was known before.

How did the epidemic begin?

Nobody knows. There was never before any Ebola in West Africa before nor there has ever been so many people infected in such a short time. All this, together with the "Ebola attack" slip of some US undersecretary-or-something, the past reports of the Trilateral Commission having debated genocide in Africa (or just in general for the World's poor), and the suspicious existence of an "experimental" effective medicine in the USA (necessary for any biological attack to be under control by the attacker), has fueled rumors and speculations about the epidemic being engineered (and then of course all eyes look to Washington, where else?)

The main counter-evidence is that the epidemic has begun in two West African states that have very close ties with Washington (both freed slaves' colonies). Also at the moment there is no conclusive evidence, so I remain agnostic.

Whatever the case the epidemic is clearly unprecedented. And is spreading fast. With such a virulence it could not be otherwise in our hyper-globalized World. If in much less interconnected and massified historical circumstances highly virulent epidemics spread massively, for example the Black Death, today anything comparable has to spread without any possible effective barrier.

There's nothing that can stop Chaos. Order and safety are just illusions.

Liberian authorities facilitated the spread to Nigeria

The vector of the transmission was Patrick Sawyer, a US-Liberian citizen with status of consultant at the Liberian Ministry of Finances. The Liberian authorities knew that he was infected with the ebola virus but cleared him for travel anyway (→ Global Research).

Sawyer planned to fly back to Minnesota (USA) after stopping in Lagos but he never made it. He could well have brought the virus to North America. But worry, yes, because if not now and if not him, someone else will eventually.

Whatever the case the scandal of Sawyer's clearance by the Liberian Deputy Minister of Finance, Sebastian Omar (pictured), who has shown no repentance whatsoever (→ Daily Post of Nigeria), has shattered African media, but remained censored in the Western propaganda machinery.

Nigerian authorities have blamed Sawyer but they have so far avoided to blame the actual culprits: the Liberian Government.

And Lagos, the largest African city, is a global crossroads from where the epidemic no doubt will spread to other countries and continents. Kenya has already suspended all entrances from the three affected countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. This is no doubt a necessary safety measure but let's think about the economic implications: as the epidemic spreads from place to place, more and more countries will become liable to such preventive measures. Of course in practical terms it is almost certainly impossible to fully control the global migration of the virus but authorities will reasonably try to implement such quarantine measures, what will hinder the economy and even possibly strain diplomatic relations.

Most dramatic forecast as the epidemic becomes a global pandemic

In any case, there's no way to stop it if the virus transmission is partly airborne, as seems to be the case (→ Public Health Agency of Canada), airports and airplanes will behave as main contagion nexuses and soon the epidemic will arrive to some place near where you live. In the worst case, it may well kill the vast majority of Humankind. But, even if it does not, even if there is some sort of effective or partly effective remedy that may keep the pandemic under control (particularly for the rich most likely), the social and economic reality of Late Capitalism will be dramatically altered.

At the very least border controls will be dramatically incremented (and fascist xenophobic trends will be fed by the very natural feeling of panic) and global traveling "normality" will be put under very strict controls. Forget about holidays anywhere far away, forget about intercontinental business traveling, forget even about customs union... when an epidemic like this one sets on, every other person is a potential threat. But, then again, if you are the one infected, you may want to avoid responsibility and pretend to be healthy because otherwise you know you will be effectively imprisoned in maximum security hospital room (or similar). Without any hope of effective treatment and with the effective reality of stigmatization of the rare survivors already happening, for many attempting to go through it on their own biological resistance (or hopes of it) may be extremely tempting.

This was no doubt the case of Patrick Sawyer. But there will be many others like him. And surely there will be many others like Omar who don't assume their responsibilities and allow the epidemic to spread knowingly.

The more interconnected a city is, the more likely that ebola will reach it soon. And then it will act as vortex for further spread. Hardly any conceivable extreme precaution will be enough.

And each precautionary step taken will hinder the globalized economy, triggering all other sorts of social ills. This is the kind of positive feedback that cannot really be brought under control, not in any way I can imagine: it is damned if you do, damned if you don't. One way you harm the economy and only have a slim chance of preventing the propagation of the pandemic, the other way you favor the pandemic, what no doubt will cost dearly to the economy as well.

Update:

I forgot to mention but Guinea is also affected and has declared the State of Emergency, following the initiative taken by Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Allegedly the Nigerian sprout seems under control - but who knows?

Another European case has been possibly detected in Alicante (Valencian Country): an immigrant from Nigeria was put under Ebola protocol in a hospital, as well as his sister, who brought him there (although she shows no symptoms).

The most recent statements of two police officers in the NSU (National Socialist Underground) trial imply that the intelligence agency employee Andreas Temme may have been involved in the murder of Halit Yozgat. The Constitutional Court of Hesse denies this and has blocked the release of information and hindered witness testimony.(...)Both the German parliamentary Investigation Committee into the NSU and the current NSU trial in Munich are intent on suppressing the involvement of the intelligence agencies in the NSU murder. Nevertheless such involvement becomes ever clearer the longer the trial continues.The destruction of hundreds of documents, refusal to give testimony, gaps in memory, mysterious deaths, etc., are being used to hush up the direct participation of the state in the NSU murders. The secret services operate as a state within the state, free from any democratic control and legal accountability.

This is just another tip of the massive Gladio Iceberg that lays under the Europe built as US Imperial Protectorate after WWII, allowing most of the fascist structures and networks to thrive under a pretext of "democracy" (or sometimes totally in the open).

Friday, August 15, 2014

It happened in 778 at dusk. The Frankish Imperial Army had failed in the plot to conquer Zaragoza and returned home through Basque lands. For unclear reasons Charlemagne had ordered to demolish the walls of Pamplona, maybe because they did not expect to be able to control it against both Basques and Muslims, what apparently outraged the Basque People to no avail.

Some days later, a day like today 1236 years ago, they had to cross the Pyrenean passes and mostly they did without problem, but when the rearguard, made up of the elite knights of the Frankish Empire, including some of the most powerful men in the realm, marched through them, they were ambushed and massacred.

It was the only major defeat of Charlemagne ever.

12th centenarian commemorative plate

Later two subsequent battles in 812 and 824 consolidated Basque independence south of the Pyrenees.

Interview in English with Borotba (Ukranian libertarian communists): They hate us because we are communists

Excerpt:

Our
organization now is under strong attack by the Kiev regime. One of our
comrades, Andrej Brajevsky, was killed during the massacre in Odessa on
May 2nd,
many of our leaders are on a wanted-list of the government’s prosecution
office, some leading comrades are still in Ukraine but they are working
now under very dangerous conditions. Neo-Nazi gangs tried to kidnap
Denis Levin and Svitlana Likht in Charkov[1].

All of our
offices were destroyed and partly occupied by fascists. The so called
National Guard, that was created from right-wing paramilitary forces
from the Maidan and that is now the legal disguise for them, attacked
our last office in Charkow.[2]

A few days
ago our fellow activist Maria Matushenko was kidnapped from her
apartment in Dnipropetrovsk. She was kidnapped by the secret police, who
took all electronic devices of her family (two laptops, four cell
phones, one tablet PC). Later she was released and fled the country.
Other comrades have been arrested and tortured by the police in Charkow.
Police officers tried to receive information about the whereabouts of
our leading comrades. Many comrades have left their apartments in order
not to get arrested.

At the moment we have no political democracy in our country, instead we are confronted with a civil war in Ukraine.

Twelve stormtroopers of the Nazi party Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) died under the Militias' gunfire after they attacked a control point near Donetsk. The Nazis arrived in an unidentified bus to the control point and attacked it killing one militiaman. The quick and effective response by his comrades nevertheless took the lives of twelve of the attackers (initially reported as seven)

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

247 Jewish survivors of Nazi death camps have already signed the following letter condemning the Gaza genocide:

Jewish survivors and descendents of survivors of Nazi genocide unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in GazaAs Jewish survivors and descendents of survivors of the Nazi genocide we unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine. We further condemn the United States for providing Israel with the funding to carry out the attack, and Western states more generally for using their diplomatic muscle to protect Israel from condemnation. Genocide begins with the silence of the world.We are alarmed by the extreme, racist dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society, which has reached a fever-pitch. In Israel, politicians and pundits in The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post have called openly for genocide of Palestinians and right-wing Israelis are adopting Neo-Nazi insignia.Furthermore, we are disgusted and outraged by Elie Wiesel’s abuse of our history in these pages to promote blatant falsehoods used to justify the unjustifiable: Israel’s wholesale effort to destroy Gaza and the murder of nearly 2,000 Palestinians, including many hundreds of children. Nothing can justify bombing UN shelters, homes, hospitals and universities. Nothing can justify depriving people of electricity and water.We must raise our collective voices and use our collective power to bring about an end to all forms of racism, including the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people. We call for an immediate end to the siege against and blockade of Gaza. We call for the full economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel. “Never again” must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!

The infamous Far Right US Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain, already heavily tainted for his support to the Nazi Maidan putsch in Ukraine, was photographed holding meetings with various West Asian Fundamentalists (a local version of Fascism) and, quite notoriously with the now proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the US-funded terrorist genocidal group known as the Islamic State.

Al Baghdadi can be seen just behind McCain

This meeting took place in Aleppo last year and it was explicitly conceived to support the Fascist Terrorists to act up against the secular and widely supported legitimate government of Syria.

In this image of the terrorist meeting, McCain seems to be scrolling the face of Baghdadi (marked in red)

Monday, August 11, 2014

What is Zionism?

In the middle of the seventeenth century, British Calvinists gathered
around Oliver Cromwell and questioned the faith and the hierarchy of
the regime. After overthrowing the Anglican monarchy, the "Lord
Protector" presumed to allow the British people to achieve the moral
purity necessary to weather a 7-year tribulation, welcome the return of
Christ and live peacefully with him for 1000 years (the "Millennium" ).
To do this, according to his interpretation of the Bible, the Jews were
to be scattered to the ends of the earth, then regrouped into Palestine
to rebuild the temple of Solomon. On this basis, he established a
Puritan regime, lifted the 1656 ban against Jews settling in England and
announced that his country was committed to create the State of Israel
in Palestine [4].

The Cromwell sect was in turn overthrown at the end of the "First
English Civil War," his supporters killed or exiled and the Anglican
monarchy was restored. Zionism (that is to say, the proposed creation
of a state for the Jews) was abandoned. It reappears in the eighteenth
century with the "Second English Civil War" (according to UK school
history textbooks), which the rest of the world knows as the "War of
Independence of the United States" (1775 - 83). Contrary to popular
belief, it was not undertaken on behalf of the Enlightenment ideal that
animated a few years later the French Revolution, but funded by the King
of France and conducted on religious grounds shouting "Our King is
Jesus! ".

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, to name a
few, presented themselves as the successors of the exiled supporters of
Oliver Cromwell. The United States logically resumed the Zionist
project.

In 1868, in England, Queen Victoria appointed Jewish Benjamin
Disraeli as Prime Minister,. He proposed to grant a share of democracy
to the descendants of Cromwell supporters to be able to rely on all the
people to extend the power of the Crown in the world. Above all, he
proposed an alliance with the Jewish Diaspora to lead an imperialist
policy of which it would be the avant-garde. In 1878, he put "the
restoration of Israel" on the agenda of the Congress of Berlin in the
new redivision of the world.

If nothing else, it is an interesting theory and one that explains the strange phenomenon of Christian-Zionism. Read the full article at Voltaire Net.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

I've been rather down this last month and not really feeling stimulated to work and contribute. Partly is just tiredness from all the real life pressures, which take a toll, but a lot is caused by the ongoing Imperial murderous aggressions in Gaza, Ukraine and Syria/Iraq.

And related to that the very depressing knowledge of being trapped under the boot of an Empire that I just can't but hate, because of the multi-layered oppressions that it inflicts on us: exploitation, double occupation (as Empire and as local state), rapid collapse of freedom of speech, growing tolerance for fascist brutality, very much worrying persistence of cultural stupidity (pop, techno and such - how annoying!), very limited hope of revolutionary change in a time that it is more needed than ever before (the very survival of the species is at the stake), etc.

Gaza genocide is a very clear instance of what is going on: raw European colonial brutality without any sort of meaningful opposition. Not at all different from other recent genocides, such as the Herero genocide, the Armenian genocide or the Jewish and Roma Holocaust. It is happening right on our faces and, while many good hearted people are doing what they can (or what they think they can) to denounce it, the political and media impunity for the Zionazis is outraging, evidencing the Fascist nature of the Imperial Authority we live under.

Another equally horrible instance of the ongoing Imperial madness is the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. It is clearly worse than Chernobyl but instead of applying the virtues of democracy, criticizing the authorities for their failures and hypocrisy, the whole trend has been to hide the problem. Reality is stubborn and will make us pay for that attitude of denial but so far they have managed to get away with it and that is even more worrisome, because they will keep doing it for as long as they can, reinforcing the fascist mechanisms of thought control via mass media controlled by very few hands.

And then we have the Fascist putsch in Ukraine, with genocide against the resisters in the East; the equally Fascist and terrorist balcanization of West Asia by the "Caliphate" of Imperial financing and at the service of the Empire, particularly the Zionists; the most worrisome advance of the Far Right in France, Britain, Denmark, Hungary, etc.

It's a really bad, very bad historical moment. Even the opposition to the Empire is quite pathetic. Sure: the BRICS have been falling together, largely under Imperial pressure, and began doing some joint stuff that may counter the US imperialism a bit. But they are all horrible bourgeois regimes with absolutely no socialist program, let alone an ecologist one, that can serve to attract the sympathies of the Global People and promote a hopeful Humankind.

And I'm not just talking of the hope of abolishing exploitation and alienation but the most critical hope of survival of the Human species, which right now seems doomed to extinction by mindless suicide.

Of all the governments on Earth, only a few Latin American ones, seem coherent enough to inspire some hope. None of them is a real power, none of them has nuclear weapons and none of them is a member of the BRICS, although they may sympathize with them because of a common foe: the US Empire.

As children die massacred with absolute impunity by the minions of the Empire in Gaza, Iraq and Ukraine, what can we do? The feeling of powerlessness is overwhelming and, sincerely, depressing.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

All the blah-blah about Buk missiles and who owns them was just a smokescreen. The availble evidence from the ground shows that the airplane was shot down with machine gun fire, which could only originate in the two Ukrainian fighter jets that were "escorting" the civilian flight.

Veteran pilot Peter Haisenko wrote an article for Global Research on the matter. He says about the only available high resolution image of the remains (→ PDF format):

The facts speak clear and loud and are beyond the realm of
speculation: The cockpit shows traces of shelling! You can see the entry
and exit holes. The edge of a portion of the holes is bent inwards.
These are the smaller holes, round and clean, showing the entry points
most likely that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile.

He explains that, while the cockpit is particularly reinforced in order to withstand possible high speed bird hits, the armament of a SU-25 is designed to destroy tanks. And there was at least one such Ukrainian SU-25 flying by the shot down Malaysian airplane when the murderous incident happened (reported by Russia and the Novorossiya authorities, but also by eyewitnesses cited by BBC - video of the witnesses' declarations).

The SU-25 machine guns use 30mm ammo of two types, one splinter explosive (dum-dum) and the other anti-tank incendiary, intercalated so they maximize the possible damage.

Because the interior of a commercial aircraft is a hermetically sealed
pressurized chamber, the explosions will, in split second, increase the
pressure inside the cabin to extreme levels or breaking point. An
aircraft is not equipped for this, it will burst like a balloon. This
explains a coherent scenario.

While the OSCE is not being as specific, the descriptions so far do match the reconstruction by Haisenko:

Michael Bociurkiw of the OSCE group of monitors at his daily briefing described part of the plane’s fuselage dotted with “shrapnel-like, almost machine gun-like holes.”

Some have tried a last-ditch defense of the Buk missile hypothesis arguing that the holes could have been also caused by shrapnel from such a missile (not a direct hit in any case) but this is contradictory with the evidence as well because there are not just entry holes but also exit ones and the entry holes are very round, as correspond to bullets, not chaotically produced shrapnel.

The Ukranian 72nd Brigade surrendered to the Novorossiya militias, it was reported yesterday, August 4th, after being surrounded between the Rebel forces and the Russian border and running short of ammunition and rations. They were demanded to leave their weapons and hardware and cross to Russia.

Some pockets of resistance remain among groups of Fascists and Polish mercenaries. The Rebel source suggests that therefore total surrender is unlikely but that the so-called "Southern Cauldron" (between Russia and the area held by the Novorossiya Federation) is anyhow in the last stages of its existence.

Map showing the "Southern Cauldron" and the Antifascist advance

Colonel Cassad says that:

I expect that this group will cease to exist in the course of 2-3 days,
following which the Cauldron will shrink in half, and the Militia will
start dealing with the remnants of the 24th and the 79th Brigades.